The grant will support a project to create computer simulations of epidemics showing worst- and best-case outbreak scenarios that can be used to evaluate new vaccine technologies and modes of vaccine delivery. The project is part of the Vaccine Modeling Initiative, a research partnership of infectious disease modeling teams at the University of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania State University, and Imperial College London that is headquartered at the University of Pittsburgh Graduate School of Public Health.

"Infectious diseases create an enormous burden on the world's population, from both a human suffering and an economic development perspective," said Donald S. Burke, principal investigator of the project and dean of the University of Pittsburgh Graduate School of Public Health. "One of the major challenges we face in stopping infectious disease outbreaks is predicting how control strategies, such as vaccines, will work. By using computer models to conduct 'epidemiology in silicon,' we will be able to test the impact of new candidate vaccine technologies and select the most effective strategies."